Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 8/21/23: California Storm & Earthquake, Trump Dodges Debate For Tucker Interview, Hawaii Officials Resign, Trump Lead Grows, DeSantis Attacks Trump Voters, Hunter Biden Updates, Michael Burry Bets Against US Market, American Scammers And Vivek Ramaswamy

Episode Date: August 21, 2023

Krystal and Saagar discuss California hit with an earthquake and tropical storm, Trump chooses Tucker interview over GOP debates, Hawaii officials resign, DeSantis attacks Trump supporters, Hunter Biden corruption updates, Michael Burry bets against US market, Americans being scammed at an all time high, and Vivek Ramaswamy draws comparisons to Andrew Yang.To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show uncut and 1 hour early visit: https://breakingpoints.supercast.com/Merch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Hey guys, Ready or Not 2024 is here, and we here at Breaking Points are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election. We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio, add staff, give you guys the best independent coverage that is possible. If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support. But enough with that. Let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody. Happy Monday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal?

Boy, oh boy, a lot going on this week. We've got updates coming for you out of California, flooding, earthquake. No one saw any of that coming. So we will bring you the latest there. We also have a debate this week, debate without the Republican frontrunner Trump. He's officially said now he is not going to participate in any of the debates. We'll get you all of that. We've also got some updates now coming out of Hawaii, some backstory about some of the dramatic failures that led to the absolute catastrophe there. So we will break that down for you as well. Some pretty fascinating polling coming out just this morning about how Republican voters are feeling about the primary field and how likely things are to change between

now and the start of the Iowa caucuses. We've also got some backstory now with regard to Hunter Biden and the plea deal that fell apart, how that all happened. And a pretty dire prediction, I guess, from Michael Burry. He was one of the people who called the financial crisis in 2008 correctly, made a ton of money off of it. He has just placed a massive bet against the U.S. economy. So break that down for you. But before we get to any of that, you know, we really want to thank all of the premium subscribers who make all of this happen. We were up late last night making sure we could track what's going on with this tropical storm Hillary in California. We've also got some special debate coverage planned for you guys this week. So all of that is made possible by your support.

Yeah, that's right. You know, we have to scramble late night. I know we have a big audience out in California. And we often find, Crystal, that California is very neglected by the East Coast-based media. So we want to do our best to try and represent. Yeah, there's definitely

an East Coast bias. We want to try and represent you guys, all who are out there. I believe, actually, California up here. I mean, it makes sense. It's the biggest population. But in terms of people

who watch and who listen to the show, also, you know, as you said, for our debate coverage, we're going to have a debate special. It will drop early for premium subscribers

and then it will premiere to the general public several hours later. So if you want to go ahead and you want to get access to that stuff, you can go ahead and sign up. BreakingPoints.com. We love you guys. But let's get to the storm. Yes, indeed. So I'm taking a look at Weather.com. This morning, their headline is flooding and mudslides strand California residents. That is after what is now a tropical storm. Hillary made a landfall there yesterday afternoon, and right about the time that Hillary made landfall, we actually had an earthquake also in Southern California. Go ahead and put this up on the screen. We've got a little bit of video here so you can see the shaking.

This was a magnitude 5.1. That's considered a moderate earthquake. And there's no significant reported damage from that, but that was just the beginning of things. Then Hillary came ashore and really lashed that area with high winds and also, in particular, massive rainfall. We can put up on the screen some of the flooding. It seems like Palm Springs was particularly hard hit. I think these videos we are showing you are out of that area. You can see this is what they call a debris plug coming through one of the waterways here. And the rain continues into today. So there are concerns that in addition to the significant flooding they see on the streets and places like L.A., Palm Springs,

even now moving into Las Vegas, Nevada, that as that rain continues, you could have additional flooding, especially as it sort of runs off down the mountains, fills up the waterways and continues. So that's what things look like in California. And we'll make sure to, you know, continue to watch it for everybody. Yeah. So everybody watch out. Flash flood warning still in all of Southern California and continuing in Nevada with the heavy rainfall. I think it, what was it? It's like the amount of rain that they will sometimes get in an entire year that fell in a single day, which is pretty crazy. Yeah. So in Palm Springs in particular, which like I said, I think was kind of hardest hit in terms of the U.S. side, Baja Peninsula was also hit very

hard. They got as much rain as they typically get in six months. They got in one day. L.A., I'm looking at the numbers now, they picked up 2.38 inches of rain just yesterday. Typically in August, they average zero inches of rain. So massive increase. And, you know, in the desert areas, they aren't used to getting this kind of rainfall. And so it can lead to really significant flooding that causes a lot of problems for people. The other thing about this is just how remarkably unusual it is. This is the first time you've had a tropical storm make landfall and hit California

in, I think it's 26 years. So highly unusual, you know, partly because my understanding is because the ocean is cooler, you're just less likely to get these type of formations out west than you are on the Atlantic coast. And by the way, there are also a lot of disturbances in the Atlantic right now that they're tracking that could be turning into tropical storms or hurricanes. So, you know, hurricane season just getting started here. So far, we haven't had any reports of deaths. We did have a number of rescues in and around San Diego, people who are stranded in the water in flooded areas. So make sure if you guys are out west, stay home. Don't go out driving. I saw some crazy videos of people driving in this stuff. I never understand.

Water up to the engine level in the car, not a great idea. But so far, you know, everybody seems to be maintaining pretty well. Yep. Hopefully everybody stays safe out there. I know it's a big thing out there in California. We are thinking about you and we will continue to track it on your behalf. All right. So let's get to the big story of the week, which is Wednesday night. There will be hosted by Fox News, the very first Republican primary debate. However, we just got official word, not that this will be that much of a surprise, but the frontrunner, the overwhelming frontrunner in that contest will not be participating. Let's put this up on the screen. True Social from former President

Trump. He says, new CBS poll just down has me leading the field by legendary, in quotes, numbers. Trump, 62 percent, 46 points above DeSanctimonious, who is crashing like an ailing bird. Ramaswamy, seven. Pence, five. Scott, three. Haley, two. Sloppy Chris Christie, two.

Ada Hutchinson, one. The public knows who I am and what a successful presidency I had with energy independence, strong borders, the military, biggest ever tax and regulation cuts, no inflation, strongest economy in history and much more. I will therefore not be doing the debates. So that's kind of noteworthy. He's not just ruling out this debate. He's also like, I'm not going to do any of the debates now. Of course, this is a man who can very much change his mind. He can

change his mind anytime he wants. We should say, though, that because he has said he won't sign the loyalty pledge, it does come down to, like, well, will he act? Because if he doesn't, then legally, or not legally, according to the rules of the RNC, then he won't be able to participate. And at the same time, Crystal, he's planning the counter-programming, not only participating in the debate, but something that he often did while he was the president. People will recall Trump's feud, of course, with the White House Correspondents Dinner, which he shunned his entirety of the time.

And he would often plan rallies on the very same nights as the White House Correspondents Dinner to particularly stick it to the press, because it meant some people couldn't attend and they had to cover the rally instead. He's doing the same thing here. Let's go ahead and put this up there on the screen. He's planning to skip the debate actually for an interview with Tucker Carlson. And that interview will air at the exact same time as the debate on X, I guess, formerly known as Twitter. I hate that I have to say that now, but it is what it is.

Clearly it's a snub intended on Tucker's behalf at his former employer. And it's one of those where counter-programming and truly like you have to imagine that he's not an idiot He's a showman. He's gonna say something. He knows is gonna gain some like Actual press attention and any press attention that happens during the debate, which is not debate related. That's bad for the debate That's bad for ratings on Twitter Especially where all the political journalists are gonna be if he says something which is more newsworthy than what's going on in the debate, well, we all know what's going to actually get the coverage the next day. Split screen or even split headlines or any of that, that's exactly what Trump wants and it's probably what he's going to get. Yeah. I mean, it's a super F you to Fox News.

Oh, yeah. Like not only because remember, Fox News is hosting this debate. So not only are you not going to the debate that they begged him to go to, I mean, there's a lot of reporting about the charm offensive, every executive under the sun flying out to wherever Trump was to try to cajole him into going. There's an anecdote about he was at dinner with one Fox personality. He gets a call from Brett Baier and he's holding up his phone to all the other dinner people showing them that, oh, Brett Baer is calling. And I mean, I think he more or less decided a while ago that he wasn't going to do this. This is something we've been talking about. We haven't expected him to do it for months at this point. But, you know, he liked to dangle the possibility to keep all of these people

kissing the ring and begging him to come because he enjoys, you know, he enjoys the suspense. He just enjoys stringing people along like that. So that's exactly what he did. But, you know, in the end, basically he decided I don't need to debate and there's more risk for me to be on that stage, especially in particular, I guess he was a little concerned about Chris Christie because he is an effective debater and, you know, might be able to land some blows and it just creates risk that he didn't want to have to deal with. Now, so in terms of the strategy, I guess I understand it in terms of democracy. Obviously, that's horrific. Right. I think that everyone should be required to debate, not just at the presidential level, but any serious candidate in any race should have to go in front of the American people, have their ideas tested, be challenged by their

adversaries, et cetera. So the fact that we have, you know, in the Republican primary and on the Democratic primary, basically the two front runners just saying, no, we're not going to participate is really quite sad and disgraceful. One thing I will say is, you know, it is, there does, there is a risk created for Trump by not participating in these debates, because, listen, he's going to do an interview with Tucker. Apparently, he's already recorded the interview with Tucker Sager and that's going to go up on X. Well, most Americans are not on X, formerly Twitter. And so how wide ranging is that going to be? Debates are new and interesting and dynamic in that,

you know, you've never had this group of people on stage before. You want to see what happens. There's controversy, there's conflict, and people are inherently interested in that sort of conflict. And so he's doing something that he normally really doesn't do, which is giving others the chance to grab the spotlight. So in that sense, it does create some risk for him. Like I said, I understand the strategy. It's probably the correct strategy, in that sense, it does create some risk for him. Like I said, I understand the strategy. It's probably the correct strategy, even though I find it kind of loathsome. But we shouldn't deny the fact that he does create a little bit of risk here for someone else to grab attention and have a little bit of a bump coming out of this debate. No question about it. You're

absolutely right. Actually, that's the point that Fox News made whenever they were begging him to come on the debate. Let's take a listen. I just don't see Donald Trump sitting at home watching, along with 40 or 50 million other Americans, when he sees Ron DeSantis in that center square. That would absolutely drive him crazy. Well, and don't you want him to do it? Because I know he's angry at everything that he feels this administration or the Democrats, the DOJ, have put him through. But don't take it out on the Republicans because Republicans want to see him up on stage. And don't take the voters for granted. Yes, he is ahead by a lot.

But to see him up there on the stage would just be wonderful because we want to see how they interact. We want to hear their policies. That's how he became Donald Trump the first time. He made it entertaining. He made it entertaining. Look, obviously, you know, that's not real and honest analysis, first time. He made it entertaining. He made it entertaining. Look, obviously, you know, that's not real and honest analysis, but that doesn't make it not true. It is true.

I think what they're saying. I think you're right. But unfortunately, given his star power, we're going to talk about a poll later on which shows who Republicans trust. Plot twist, Trump. Number one, well above conservative media and Fox News. He can get away with it. The man just has more leeway than anybody else. I don't think it should be this way. And in fact, I was thinking about it,

instead of a loyalty pledge, I think that once we are finally rid of Trump, both parties should change their bylaws such that you cannot be the nominee of the Democrats or the Republicans and refuse to participate in sanctioned debates. You have to participate in said debate if you want to eventually become the nominee of your party. And these debates are good.

You know, Obama, I think he debated Hillary almost 19 times. He even did debates against Hillary after he was the presumptive nominee. And you know what? A lot of clips of him saying things he was going to do during those times that didn't end up being true, they were very valuable in holding him to account. You're like, you said you're going to tear up NAFTA on day one. What happened? You said you were going to do X about Iran. You said you were going to do X about Iraq. You said you were going to do X about Afghanistan.

Why did you change your mind? That was very, very valuable to the public. These primary debates are not a joke. It's very unfortunate, I think, that you won't be doing it. They're valuable to activists, too, because if you make a concrete pledge on that debate stage under pressure from your primary opponents or from the moderators or whatever, that can be real leverage in terms of shaming a politician into doing the thing that they really starkly pledged and promised that they would do.

So 100 percent, it's valuable. You never know in a live fire exercise like that what is going to come out, what's going to be revealed, what sort of pledges are going to be made that you can hold people to. So it is it is incredibly important. I don't have any expectation that the parties will require that because that would sort of tie their hands. I mean, certainly the Democratic Party has no interest in demanding President Biden debate. The DNC explicitly didn't even set up debates for this time around. So, you know, let's be clear about how much hope we have for all of this. But, you know, the Fox and Friends clips really just shows all of the levels that the Murdoch empire was all of all of the firepower. They were training on Trump to try to cajole him into going to these debates. But he has no intention of doing it. Let's go and put this next piece up

on the screen from Trump going after Fox. He says, why doesn't Fox and Friends show all of the polls where I'm beating Biden by a lot? They just won't do it. Also, they purposely show the absolute worst pictures of me, especially the big orange one with my chin pulled way back. They think they are getting away with something. They're not just like 2016 all over again. And then they want me to debate. So this is part of a sort of escalating war that has been going on between Trump and Fox News and the Murdoch empire. Trump apparently privately expressing a lot of upset with with Rupert Murdoch, of course, the head of that whole media conglomerate. And Murdoch has really been a little bit all over the place. I mean,

he clearly wants to be rid of Trump, number one. He initially had backed Ron DeSantis and explicitly told DeSantis that he would and his empire would be behind him. They ran all kinds of glowing puff pieces, et cetera. On the other hand, the base and the Fox News viewership still much of it, very much in Trump's camp. So you still have a lot of fawning Trump coverage

on the network. Now, the latest twist is with DeSantis falling off in the polls, as Trump put it, like an ailing bird, apparently. Murdoch is shopping around. The latest person that has caught the fancy of not only Rupert Murdoch, but a bunch of donors are living in this delusional world where Glenn Youngkin, put this up on the screen, could be the Trump killer. Rupert Murdoch has apparently urged Youngkin to run for president against Trump. They say that he asked him to make a presidential run in at least two meetings several months ago. Sources familiar with the matter told the Post.

And there's other reporting about how sort of high level Republican donors who are upset with DeSantis and not impressed with his campaign, they see Youngkin as sort of like a last-ditch effort. But sorry, guys, I don't see that one working out. Totally. Everyone will be happy to know that Governor Virginia actually was in Nantucket yesterday on that island in Massachusetts,

had a meet-and-greet with billionaires at the House of Putnam Investments' Bob Reynolds. The guest also included Steve Schwartzman of Blackstone fame, who has yet to commit to a 2024 candidate, just to give people an idea who is actually gathering around Glenn Young. Yeah, I don't know why these people have any delusion as to how their money matters at all right now in this race. Vivek has plenty of money. Doug Burgum's got plenty of money. DeSantis got more money than anybody else. They backed up behind him. And you know, he only continues to go down overall in polls. It's not the candidate, guys.

Or at least the candidate that you're backing. It's the one who's at the top who you don't like. And the money ain't the problem. The money ain't the problem. And getting, you know, another name into this race. Republican voters already have plenty of not Donald Trump options. And you can see who they're sticking with. Well, you know, they never seem to learn over there.

But it is what it is. They can light their money on fire, I guess. Let's go to the next one here about Hawaii and Maui. This is something we were tracking closely about the actual response to the disaster. And there's actually been a pretty major development after an outcry in Hawaii over a very controversial decision. Let's go and put this up there on the screen.

The head of Maui Emergency Services has resigned after facing criticism for not activating sirens during the fire. So I want to try and be fair to the guy. We talked a little bit about it in our last show. The reason why they said, Crystal, that they had not sounded the sirens and instead tried to contact people by the emergency tech system was because they were saying the islanders had been taught to go and run towards the mountains in the event of tsunami,

which is traditionally what the siren had been used for. And since that's where the fire was, they didn't want them to go in that direction. Now, though at the same time, a lot of people were saying that because many of the other critical emergency systems failed, by failing to pull out all the stops, it shows that you were more concerned with not throwing everything possible at the problem

to alert everyone that an imminent disaster was coming, that you basically did that. And now you're coming up with said explanation afterwards. The resignation following, actually, the resignation after that press conference, which was a very contentious press conference actually where the emergency service chief gave this announcement, I think does show you how much actual anger there is not in the rest of the country, but on the island itself. Currently, the attorney general even says that they are going to conduct an independent review of the government response and an actual investigation as to how this entire disaster unfolded. But this has become a focal point of outcry of people like, well, at least you didn't even try, you know, to give people a heads up. And when we're talking

about a death toll, potentially in the hundreds, we still don't know yet what the actual death toll is on the island. But, you know, it's a hundred or so right now, but very, very likely to be much higher than that. Already one of the deadliest disasters. But, you know, it's 100 or so right now, but very, very likely to be much higher than that, already one of the deadliest disasters. Well, in that situation, I think it's very, very important in order to hold these people to account for what they did. Yeah, I think that's right. And, you know, anybody can look at a moment-by-moment decision and trying to figure out what the best course of action is, and perhaps the excuse he's given is reasonable. But in hindsight, given that you have so many residents who were saying, you know,

I really had no idea how dire the circumstance was. And I really didn't have enough warning to figure out, you know, a plan and be able to really protect myself and my family. I think in hindsight, you have to look and say, probably made the wrong call given how devastating. I mean, just to keep this in mind, guys, most devastating fire that we have had in over a century. So, you know, in 100 years of preventative measures and understanding how to control wildfires and all of this development, you know, all of that seemed to go away in this situation where you had early warning system that wasn't sounded, you had inadequate water to fight the fire. And now there continue to be a lot of complaints from residents and increasing, by the way, mainstream reporting about how slow the government response has been at all levels. And that's why we still don't have anywhere close to an accurate death count from just this horrific,

tragic situation. Yeah. And even right now, there's now scrutiny again on Hawaii Electric Grid, which appears to be the source of the fire itself. Let's go and put this up there on the screen. And this just gets to even more of actual questions. Hawaiian Electric, the power utility in charge here, has been warned now for years that not only was extreme weather becoming a bigger problem, but that the company did not have enough equipment or fire damages to residents for things that their power lines, downed power lines, and failed safety maneuvers that they didn't look into that eventually went on to either kill people or to damage property. They were warned about it. They had an independent review in 2018, which said this is a serious problem. They'd seen similar instances in the nearest state. They didn't do anything about it.

Apparently, they didn't have a highly reinforced system. There had been no hardening of their power lines that made them vulnerable to falling into sparking fires. Similarly, they were even aware, Crystal, about dried vegetation, which was increasingly growing around said power lines, which is what made the wildfire spark so quickly that all of this again comes back to Everyone knew that this is gonna be a problem. It's in retrospect. You'd be like there's warning warning warning You have near you know, you haven't been near near estate same problem But it's these not these like power utility monopolies which are effectively accountable to no one

You know, let's not lie Like these things are often rife with corruption and incompetence. You put those two things together, and now you have this horrible and deadly wildfire. Yeah, that's exactly right. No one wanted to pay for the upgrades. Yeah, just didn't want to pay for it. It needed to be made, even though this exact scenario was envisioned, and they were warning about it back in 2018.

Okay, let me just read you this piece. In 2018, the Maui County government warned of the potential that above-ground power lines that fail, short, or are low-hanging can cause fire ignition sparks that could start a wildfire, particularly in windy or stormy conditions. That appears to have been exactly, exactly what happened here. There was a $190 million proposal from Hawaiian Electric to improve their grid. It would have, among other things, replaced aging power poles with new ones, including 80 in Maui. Energy experts said many of the company's poles were probably not strong enough to withstand winds that hit Lahaina. So you couple aging poles not ready for the strength of winds that were coming, whipping through Lahaina with this dried vegetation around the electric lines,

these invasive grasses. You had a longstanding drought that created these dry conditions, and it ended in a complete disaster. Another thing that they had been warned about is they needed to establish a power shutoff plan, which is something that they have implemented in California, so that when you have these incredibly dangerous situations that are known to cause potential wildfires, you can shut down the power and have a backup plan in place to run things that are essential. For example,

the water pumps to make sure that they're still able to fight the fires using the water, generators to make sure that hospitals are going to be okay and people who need electricity literally to live are going to be all right. If you have a plan in place, then when those high winds whip through that you know can cause these kinds of problems, you can be safe and shut these things down. They did not put that sort of plan into place. And so now we have disaster. I want to show you guys, listen, this is early days in terms of investigating exactly what sparked these wildfires. But there's a video that's circulating and that news media have picked up on that may show exactly where this fire started,

and it's exactly what we're talking about here. A downed power line catching invasive dry grasses on fire, which then spread quickly. This is before, guys, let's take a look at that video. Freaking power line just went down. Try my little water hose. See them right there, that's the power line that started. Started from up the road there.

And all of that is still burning. Hey heads up, the line is live on the ground right there. I sent my family away already. Thank you. It's super crazy. And then on the other hand, it's like maybe it'll be closure. So that video is recorded and it was later in the day that the wildfire really spread out of control. So possibly, possibly that was the start of it. I mean, you can't look at the video and say it didn't, say it, you know, that didn't contribute. Contributed for real. You know, who knows?

We'll look into it, obviously, and we'll continue to follow. And at the same time, you saw that guy with his hose trying to protect his house. This has become another source of contention. Let's put this up there. A lot of scrutiny right now on Maui and on West Maui in particular over their emergency management department and the Department of Natural Resources, who refused to release water immediately requested by landowners who wanted to protect their property from the fires. There was a standoff. He said he needed to go and check with his bosses. There was like a whole procedure that he was trying to follow in terms of you got to talk to the people who were in charge of the farms and the people who were owning the company property.

Eventually, Crystal, the water was released to the landowners, but by the time it was, fires were already basically rampant. And, you know, the ability in order to immediately dampen the area around you, many of the people on the island are furious about the conflict on the water management because they say that they could have saved either their farms or their property should that have happened. It's not just about property.

I mean, people died in this fire. And people died. They lost their lives. And then we have hundreds of billions of dollars of damage here. And now there's a whole question of obviously what we're talking about in terms of land development use. The state says they're going to buy it. Are they actually going to

buy it for the residents? These snaking real estate developers are already moving in on this. So this whole thing, it's far away. And so, you know, like we talked about earlier in our show, the East Coast, they're aware of what's going on, but they're not tracking and following the developments closely as if it were to happen in Boston or Washington or New York or something like this. But this is a real scandal, I think, whenever you look at the multi-tiered response to this. The water piece is really complex and really devastating because there have been longstanding ideological divisions on Maui as, I mean, this is similar to the sort of disputes that you see in the Western U.S. about who has the right to the water and how is it distributed, et cetera. And so the question here is, did ideology get in the way of, in these past power struggles,

over who owns the water and who has a right to it? Did that get in the way of an effective fire response? That is the allegation from a lot of people. And then the last thing to mention is that President Biden is actually taking a break from his vacation to fly into Hawaii today to survey the damage. And I'm sure he's going to, if he gets any residents near him that have a chance to give him an earful about how they feel about the response so far, I'm sure he's going to hear quite a bit about the lack of visible federal government response. Thank you, Mr. President, for taking a break from staying at billionaire Tom Steyer's house, of which he claims he's renting for fair market value, which is great, in Lake Tahoe.

Thank you for taking a break during that second vacation, actually, this month in order to visit Hawaii after you originally said no comment. That's the American leadership that Americans have come to expect. Yes. All right. Shamed him into doing it, so glad that he'll be there. All right, let's talk a little bit more about what is going on in the Republican primary because we have some really fascinating numbers out for you this morning that give you a real state of the Republican base.

Let's start with the CBS News poll, And these are just the top line numbers. This is actually the poll that Trump was referencing and his truth about how he's not going to participate in any of the debates. Go ahead and put the top line up on the screen here. You can see Trump really running away from it, away with it in terms of the CBS News YouGov poll. He's at 62. Second, way down the line, is Ron DeSantis, 16%. Next, you got Vivek Ramaswamy at 7, Pence at 5, Scott at 3, Haley 2, Christie 2, Doug Burgum 1, Asa Hutchinson, not Ada. Now I have it in my head that his name is Ada. It is not Ada. It is Asa at 1%. But perhaps even more fascinating were some of the details contained within this poll. Put this next piece up on the screen. They asked what was actually a very interesting question.

Which of these individuals or institutions do you feel are telling you the truth? So feel what they tell you is true. 71% of Trump voters say they think that Trump is telling you the truth. Down at the next highest level, so lower than Trump, 63% said friends and family. Only 56% said conservative media figures and maybe even the most wild here, religious leaders, only 42%. So again, this is among Trump voters. The person who they most feel is telling them the truth above friends and family, above like conservative media hosts, Fox News, whoever, and above their religious leaders, they think that Donald Trump is telling them the truth, Sagar. Yeah, there's a line from a book called The Loudest Voice in the Room. It's a biography of

Roger Ailes. And there's a very famous one that I always think about in terms of the news business. And Ailes apparently was, they were debating something about being informed, informing the audience. And Ailes looked at everybody and he said, people don't want to be informed. They want to feel informed.

And I think about that every single time that I see stuff like this. That sounds like Logan Roy. Well, it was based on him for a reason. Ailes was, in many ways, is a much more interesting character, I think, than Logan Roy. But, you know, feeling like what they tell you is true. This is a story about the downstream destruction of norms and of faith in institutions. And I'm not going to blame the voters themselves.

I think it is up because of the lack of trust in religious leaders and in conservative media figures. The fact that they are willing to place so much truth and emphasis inside of Trump shows you that they have no trust in the mainstream media, no trust in their government, even the friends and family number. They're willing to put so much of their faith, their interest, and look at the truthfulness of what Trump says because they literally have such low levels of social trust with the people around them and with overall society. Now, there's a lot of

factors that go into that, but I'm not in the blaming people business. I'm in the business of being like, how the hell does something like this happen? It's multi-generational that we've got to this point. Economics is a huge part of it. Culture has a big part of it as well. Media centralization, monopoly. And there's so much, I think, really that goes into this. But this result, like this is the central problem

of our time. Yeah. And, you know, I don't think people, Democrats necessarily, should feel all that much better. If you were to flip this around and be like MSNBC,

friends and family, then like government, Trump or something like that, I guarantee you would have similar results. So it's bifurcated really in terms of like who you trust, who is telling you exactly what you want to hear. That's a big problem. Now, luckily you and I have found success in not telling people necessarily what they want to hear. But, you know, we're not under any illusion though that, that this is like a big, massive segment of the country. If anything, we are cutting very much against the grain. That's great that some people do want to feel challenged and all that.

But the vast majority of people don't. The vast majority of people want to feel comfortable and they want to hear exactly what they think being parroted right back to them. Yeah, I mean, I think there's two things here. I think the factors that are ongoing, multi-decade, that, you know, justifiably broke a lot of trust in institutions, but also have really broken down social cohesion. That's how that friends and family number makes sense. Created an opening for an individual like Trump. Yes. Who steps in and, you know, almost overtly says, like, I am the person who will tell you,

I know what, believe no one else, right? And makes all of our politics, both on the Republican and the Democratic side, and it depends really upon everybody, makes all of our politics about how do you feel about this one individual? And, you know, if you're a Trump supporter, if your friends and family aren't Trump supporters, then, you know, whatever view of the world they have or whatever quote unquote facts they bring to the table, you are very likely to distrust. He had, I don't think it's an accident that at a time when he is overtly at war with Fox News, which is the largest, obviously conservative media outlet, that you would have some fading trust in that institution as well. Because if they aren't

backing up what Trump is saying, then they must not be telling the quote unquote truth. And same thing, you know, you've had a lot of religious leaders recently have come out against Trump, who were trying to move people over to DeSantis or Tim Scott or whoever, that obviously is not working out either. But it really is a byproduct of someone who has, whether this was like an overt tactical strategy or just, you know, the outcome of him operating based on his id, he has made all of politics just about him, not policy, not the past, not history, not, you know, any sort of like logical reasoning or facts. Just how do you feel about this individual? And so in that light of that context and the preparation over many decades to create that sort of opening for an individual to come in and fill that void, I think that's how you make sense of these numbers.

But it is pretty wild to see. Absolutely. And that's how it manifests in the polls. Like put this one up there that we just came out this morning. I mean, how GOP views of Biden are helping Trump in the Republican primary. You pointed this out, Crystal, from there, which is that one of the reasons that they think about electability and they think Trump is so electable is they literally don't believe any of the polls that say that people don't like Trump and they think Biden is such a bumbling old, you know, Alzheimer's laden fool that anybody could beat him. So to them, it's not competitive.

And, you know, I mean, there's something to that. There is also, though, the truth that they don't want to hear that a lot of people in this country not only don't like Trump, a lot of them hate Trump. And if you combine those two together, that's a pretty sizable portion of the population. At the same time, and I'll always be the person to add that caveat, it doesn't mean that a thousand people aren't gonna vote for him. He had a 30-some percent approval rating in 2020,

and he won 70-something million votes and came within 30, 40,000 of actually winning the presidency. So don't ever count on not liking somebody for, that doesn't mean that you can't win. In our system, it absolutely means that you can win. So I always have to add that caveat, but the electability piece of it shows you, you have to understand the mind of who these people are, not even the media that they're consuming, because clearly

they don't even trust, you know, their own conservative media figures as much as they trust Trump. Trump is the one who is telling them Joe Biden is such a fool, anybody could beat him. And that's why you should pick me. Well, not only that, I mean, there's an irony here, too, because Fox News, led by Rupert Murdoch, also obviously really wanted to move on from Trump. Yes. But they also have been leaning into this, you know, painting Biden as so frail and so weak that anyone could beat it. Right. And, you know, as you said,

there is something to that. I'm not saying he's a strong candidate. You got a majority of Democrats who were like, we'd really like to move on from this dude. His approval rating is underwater, et cetera, et cetera. But they painted a picture that was so dire that people feel like, ah, even if Trump is like facing all these indictments and potentially facing prison time, we think that literally anyone could beat Joe Biden. And so the concerns about electability, which did exist in larger numbers right after Republicans kind of crashed and burned in the midterms, those have wildly subsided. And actually, the majority of Republican voters do think that Trump is the most electable candidate anyway. But you've got a bunch of quotes that are pretty interesting from Republican voters do think that Trump is the most electable candidate anyway. But you've got a bunch of quotes that are pretty interesting from Republican voters. I believe all of them in Iowa

in that New York Times piece. You have a woman who was waiting in line for a photo with Trump who said, I mean, I would hope anybody could be Joe Biden at this point. You got another person who said of Joe Biden, he's a train wreck. He was considering whether to vote for Trump or DeSantis, that individual. Another person said, what strength as a candidate does he have any about Joe Biden? Another individual said it's just one gaffe after another. So it reminds me a little bit of during the Obama era, you know, there was such a caricaturish view of Obama that was put forward on conservative media that Republican based voters really thought like, you know, a toaster could beat him. Right. And he retained some strength. I think he was a much stronger politician than Joe Biden and certainly much more in the prime of his life than Joe Biden is now. But, you know, they really were

shocked when he was able to win reelection. And there was sort of total shock and horror that night as the voting results were coming in. And the caricature is a little more accurate with Joe Biden because he really does have, he really is aging. He really does have these stumbles. He really is weak in a lot of regards. He really is that old. And there are a lot of justified concerns about whether he could even make it through another four year term. But in the same respect, you know, you shouldn't fool yourself about how difficult it is to be any incumbent president and how, you know, he has some strengths as a political candidate. Otherwise, he would never have made it to be president of the United States in the first place. I mean, he has already beaten Donald Trump one time. So people should

keep that in mind. Yeah, you're absolutely right, Crystal. All right. At the same time, we've got some comments from Ron DeSantis that have gotten a lot of attention. The Trump side is painting this as sort of like his Hillary Clinton deplorables moment. The DeSantis side is saying that his comments were taken out of context. So we want to play for you his comments more or less in full. There's no cuts, I mean, in the middle. So you can get a sense of exactly what he was saying in this piece. And then we'll talk about it on the other side. Take a listen. I think that we have a strand in our party that views supporting Trump as whether you are a rhino or not. And so you could be the most conservative person since sliced bread. Unless you're kissing his rear end, they will somehow call you a rhino.

So it's been totally detached from principle and what you actually believe and results. And it's more about just what faction you happen to do. So there'll be people who are huge Trump supporters, like in Congress, who have like incredibly liberal left wing records that that's really just atrocious. And yet they're viewed as by some of these folks as like as like really, really good. Then you have other people, you know, like a congressman, Chip Roy, who's endorsed me, Congressman Thomas Massey. These guys have records of principle fighting the swamp that are second to none. And yet they will be attacked by some of these people and called rhinos. So it's just been totally detached from any type of substance. And ultimately, a movement can't be about the personality of one individual. The movement has got to be about what are you trying

to achieve on behalf of the American people? And that's got to be about what are you trying to achieve on behalf of the American people? And that's got to be based in principle, because if you're not rooted in principle, if all we are is listless vessels that just supposed to follow, you know, whatever happens to come down the pike on truth social every morning, that's not going to be a durable movement. All right. So let me get to the Trump campaign response. And then, Sagar, I'm particularly interested in your reaction to those comments that have been construed as him referring to Trump supporters as listless vessels. I personally think the context makes it a little unclear. Anyway, put the Trump campaign response up on the screen. They say Ron DeSantis must immediately apologize. Hillary Clinton Trump supporters are

deplorables to Ron DeSantis. They are listless vessels. The truth is Trump supporters are patriots. Ron DeSantis is showing his true colors. Pressure polling in third place is getting to DeSantis, and now he's lashing out at the very same voters who got him elected governor. DeSantis must immediately apologize for his disgraceful insult. This is per a spokeswoman for Make America Great Again, Inc. So what did you think of DeSantis' comments?

I thought he was totally right. I don't think there's anything wrong about what he said. In terms of winning, though, you probably shouldn't say that. So it's one of those where, analytically, he's obviously right. And I think it's probably a frustration born of, you are running the campaign. On paper, you're ticking all the boxes that these people say they want. They're like, we want to challenge corporate power.

We want this. We want that. We want to use the power of the state to enforce our ends. We want somebody who can win, somebody who's not embroiled in crime. But the truth is you don't actually want any of that. And I think he's calling them out for basically lying about what they want. And I think it's true. I mean, look, if the vast majority of the people were like, oh, I support Trump because of his policies.

I'm like, yeah, maybe if you're a small business owner. The rest of you, it's like you just love that he pisses off the people that you hate. You can claim otherwise. That's fine. It's your prerogative. But, you know, based on everything that we've seen, if you really do care about, quote, unquote, the policy, it's pretty clear you would pick DeSantis. But nobody votes like that. It's like the Elizabeth Warren campaign back in 2020.

She's like, I'm the one who's got a plan for that. He's like, yeah, it's just not really what people care about. It's about, do I feel as if you're actually talking to my concerns? Trump is a master of that. He's the master of, you know, the Roger Ailes quote I talked about previously about making people feel informed, making people feel heard. That's all that actually matters, I think, in a lot of politics. So he's not wrong. I mean, and I've always, I've said this now for years, you can go and watch old monologues. I'm like, all MAGA means is Trump and that's it. And he's the one. And by the way, who are we to say otherwise? It's not us. He invented it. And these people continue to vote for him. Who am I to be like, no, that's not actually what America

for. I see people will talk about this all the time. Like that's not the real America first policy. I'm like, yeah, you know what though? Like he invented it. He gets to define it. The rest of us get to decide whether we agree or not, you know, in something. And ideological consistency is literally long, not been any part of the Trump brand. That's how you have Jim Jordan, who is pro-Trump and you have a guy like Matt Gaetz who's pro-Trump. They don't agree on almost anything, you know, but they agree on one thing, which is Trump is the leader. And that's all you actually have to agree on. Yeah. I mean, Trump very successfully made the Republican Party all about where do you stand vis-a-vis Donald Trump? That's it. And that's why at the beginning of this primary, when there was a lot of Ron

DeSantis hype, I was highly skeptical that even when he was polling well and he just had these great election returns in Florida, et cetera, that this was going to work out for him because the whole Republican Party is just about how do you feel about Donald Trump? All of his high-minded, you know, in his mind, ideas about how I'm going to put forward this policy agenda in Florida and people are going to see the results of what I'm doing here, et cetera. No, the Republican Party is about how do you feel about Donald Trump? And so until you break that hold that he has, it's just not going to work out. And so it's no, it is not a surprise that the person who has the most online energy and is, you know, kind of rising up to be potentially second to Donald Trump is the guy who is hugging him in a lot of ways the most closely, which is Vivek Ramaswamy. Yes.

He isn't trying to beat Trump. I mean, that's the reality. Vivek is not trying to beat Trump. He's trying to be the second place candidate who, if something happens unforeseen to Trump, he'll be there next in line or might be in a Trump cabinet or whatever. He's not really running to win because there is no ability to directly displace Donald Trump. And that's what Ron DeSantis here has found out. Now, I think his analysis is completely accurate that, you know, it's just the definition of a rhino is just basically whatever Donald Trump says it is and however loyal you are to him or not. That's the whole of the entirety entire thing. But I also want to say, you know, Ron DeSantis was happy to rise based on exactly that dynamic when it served his political interests. When he was initially running for

governor, I mean, Trump, you know, very dramatically tells the story about how he came to him with tears in his eyes to beg for his endorsement. I'm sure that part of it is not accurate, but he was very heavily dependent on Trump's endorsement, did what he needed to do to try to get Trump's endorsement in the Republican primary. That enables him to win that victory. He ran all of these just like shamelessly sycophantic ads, the one where his kid was building the wall, et cetera. So he was very happy to use this exact political dynamic that he's now decrying for his own benefit until it didn't work out for him any longer. So it's hard for me to shed a tear about, you know, him being sort of flayed now for accurately diagnosing the state

of the Republican Party. And by the way, I do think it's fair to say here that he was referring to Trump supporters as listless vessels. Like, I don't think that that was taken out of context. It's a little bit unclear whether, you know, he could technically argue like, oh no, I was just talking specifically about elected leaders. But it's put out there pretty broadly. And I think it is fair to say that he was characterizing basically everyone who would just follow Trump regardless and no matter what as kind of listless vessels. Yeah. And I, like I said, I don't think he should have said it politically, but analytically, he's right. He's obviously right. And anybody who is not like wholly up the behind, I guess to say kindly, of a single politician knows that he's right or has interacted with said people. But, you know, telling the truth isn't always the best strategy here.

So we have some clips also that we wanted to remind people of, I guess just for fun, about some of these past moments, because these things do matter. Hillary, of course, talking about deplorable voters. Here's what she said at the time. You can put half of Trump supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. the racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, you name it. Hurts even today. A, her voice. But second, in terms of how politically stupid it was to make that comment. And it also reminded us, Crystal, of the 47% comment that Mitt Romney made. This is an all-time great.

This is the all-time hit. Let's take it. There are 47% of the people who have voted for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47% who are with him, who are dependent on government, who believe that they are victims, who believe that government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they're entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you name it. That that's an entitlement, and the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what. Ooh, that one's still, that actually hurts the most,

just because it's so brutal. Like, it's such an out of touch, elitist statement set at the exact moment that some rich guy's sipping wine in a private fundraiser. You've got a waiter who hated the guy who was recording it. So is this DeSantis' deplorables moment, 47% moment?

I don't think so just because he's not riding high enough for it to matter. He's already dropping regardless of the comment, you know? Yeah, that is kind of true.

I mean, you know, DeSantis' team is trying to clean it up. So he was taken out of context, whatever. I mean, Hillary said the same thing. Like, oh, well,

listen to the other part of the sentence where I said the other people are, you know, just basically having trouble economically and they feel left behind or whatever exactly she said. I think of Obama's like clinging to their guns comment as well. Same thing. They tried to close. It's taken out of context. Hillary made another comment about like, we're going to put a lot of coal miners out of work that, um, by the way, in West Virginia. That was way worse. Every single person in the state knew about that quote. Well, they should.

Which signaled not only like the reality of like, no, we're coming for your jobs and your economy, but also a level of contempt. She similarly, oh, it was taken out of context. If you listen to the whole thing, et cetera. But I agree with you. I don't think that this is as poignant as either of those, any of those examples particularly are. Listless vessels is just not quite as punchy as a basket of deplorables as one example. But to me, with DeSantis, it shows a little bit of recognition

of reality, perhaps a little bit of frustration, a little bit of desperation that he would, you know, that he would allow himself to say what is clearly a very accurate analysis here. And it's certainly not going to help him out with the Trump voters that he's trying to win over. I agree. Let's talk about Hunter Biden. This is just, this is one of the most perfect clips that we've ever seen. So MSNBC's Joe Scarborough has on Hunter Biden's lawyer, I'll be loyal to flack for him. And Joe, I guess because he has to cave to the pressure now,

is like, okay, so what was going on with all this foreign money flowing into Hunter's pockets? And the lawyer is very quick to defend his clients, his well-known skills, his well-known intellect as a businessman. Let's take a listen. Or asking, what did Hunter Biden think he was getting that $7 million for? Why would he be getting paid so much money? All right. Well, stop with your seven million dollars and talk about how many years that Hunter has been in business and what happened to each of those specific years. When you say it that way, people think that somebody just sent him a check for seven million

dollars. The Washington Post reported it was seven million dollars. What's the seven million dollars over and how many countries did it come from? Well, OK, so first of all, it's much more complicated than to say it comes from countries. There are joint ventures between American entities and in one or two occasions, a potential foreign entity to create the possibility of jobs and energy in the United States. That's too complicated to try to explain. But I can answer the question that you asked in the following way. Over the time that he was in business, this is, again, something that people ought to pay attention to. Hunter Biden went to Georgetown University, went to Yale Law School, was on the board of directors of a bank, was on

the board of directors of Amtrak, is somebody who went and worked in an international law firm. People tend to forget that this is not the person who's simply out there having people write checks for no reason. He's a capable, educated, experienced person. Now, if Congress wants to start saying, wait, does he get opportunities because his last name is Biden? They should look to themselves. I mean, Senator Joe Manchin's wife is on a commission in West Virginia where Congress had provided an enormous amount of funds. Well, there's a lot going on there. He's not wrong, but there's also a lot of other-

That last part is kind of accurate. He's not wrong. There's a lot of other corruption. He doesn't necessarily just- My personal favorite is that they basically refer to him as a job creator. You see, Hunter was creating a lot of jobs for hookers here in the US and across, and drug dealers. We got to think about this.

It's outrageous. You know, all his qualifications that he listed were all ones that also came as a result of his corruption. Yeah. He's like, oh, he served on the board of Amtrak. You know why he served on the board of Amtrak? Because Biden was obsessed with Amtrak. His qualification was, quote, he rode the trains a lot. That was the best.

Everyone thinks I'm kidding whenever I say that. It's an official statement that he made whenever he applied for the best. Everyone thinks I'm kidding whenever I say that. It's an official statement that he made whenever he applied for the job. And it would all be funny if it wasn't one of the most brazen elements of someone getting away with it clearly by becoming filthy rich, exploiting his position, and now because his dad is the president getting special treatment. And we're seeing that clear as day. Let's put this up there on the screen. This is a fascinating inside look where in talks with prosecutors, while Hunter was negotiating his sweetheart deal with the current special counsel, he actually hit lawyers made a threat. And I don't think there's any way to read it. Otherwise that president Biden would now have to be a fact witness, Crystal, for the defense

at trial. The Department of Justice argued that by threatening to put the president on the stand, his own father, he would start a constitutional crisis around whether the president can, about immunity. But it is clear that Hunter was actually weaponizing his role as the first son to basically blackmail and try to get the DOJ to give him that sweetheart pardon deal. There's also some more elements that we're beginning to learn about how exactly said sweetheart deal began to collapse. And it's becoming quite clear. If we can go ahead and put D3, please, up on the screen.

This is an inside report from the New York Times where they are talking about how Hunter Biden's legal team is now arguing, and with some apparently sympathetic ears in the Department of Justice, that the IRS whistleblowers should be prosecuted for coming forward. But if you put the two stories together, you actually learn something very interesting,

which is that sweetheart deal actually collapsed after the whistleblowers came forward because the public details of what Hunter has gotten away with effectively by originally being able to plead misdemeanor and get immunity from all future federal prosecution, it looked terrible for the current special counsel. And he was like, all right, I can't be agreeing to this deal. There is all kinds of chicanery now. This is. Clearly going on behind the scenes. Such a mess. Yeah, this is crazy. Such a mess.

And the story in Politico that breaks down how this all fell apart is really interesting. I mean, basically the TLDR is that Weiss screwed this up in every way that he could. First of all, he appears to have been way too swayed by Hunter's lawyers and their lengthy PowerPoint presentation and their long letters that they sent threatening, hey, you, DOJ, Joe Biden's DOJ, you really want to force the president of the United States onto the stand as a fact witness here?

Really, you want to do that? And then also they were making the argument that, oh, you know, this would be seen as political if you went after Hunter, et cetera, et cetera, where it was actually political that they didn't go after Hunter is what ended up happening. So Weiss strikes this deal with Hunter that he really shouldn't have, that the most egregious really in some ways part of it was the broad immunity that they did agree to, based on the letter that Politico got their hands on that had the specific language about exactly what legal issues would be taken off the table. I'll give you the specific language here. It's

kind of technical, but just so you get a sense of it, they say the U.S. agrees not to criminally prosecute Hunter Biden outside of the terms of this agreement for any federal crimes encompassed by the attached statement of facts and the statement of facts attached as Exhibit 1 to the memorandum of plea agreement filed the same day this agreement does not provide any protection against prosecution for any future conduct by Biden or his affiliated business. And in those statements of facts that they reference there, they go through chapter and verse of not only the drug issues, the tax issues, the gun issues, but also the foreign potentially corrupt dealings. They also list that all out. So when Hunter and his team in the court were like, no, the agreement includes this broad immunity, they were actually correct based on the deal that had been signed off both by the

government and by Hunter Biden. Now, to be clear, it is outrageous that Weiss gave him this broad immunity. I mean, that was a real screw up. And it appears that Weiss came to understand when these whistleblowers came forward and once there was political heat and scrutiny, came to understand that he gave away the store and really shouldn't have. And so then they try to backtrack. Then you have the whole plea deal collapse in the courtroom. Now everything is really up in the air. Hunter's original lawyer, Jeffrey Clark, who negotiated this original plea deal that, again, both parties signed off on, he is now off of Hunter's team. Abby Lowell, who you saw there on MSNBC, is now leading the team, very well-known high-powered DC lawyer, et cetera, et cetera, because Clark may now be a witness in terms of the Hunter trial of how this deal all came together.

Because Hunter's team is like, we had a deal. You signed off on it. I don't care if you changed your mind and thought it was too good of a deal, but we had this deal. And so part of the potential trial going forward is going to be litigating whether or not this deal represents like a binding contract. But just to get to the bottom line here, it was insane that Weiss ever gave him this widespread immunity for all that he was doing in terms of business deals overseas, even as they have an investigation continuing and ongoing. You never should have given that deal. And now he's trying to CYA to cover his own ass by, you know, asking

for the special counsel appointment and going back on his, you know, the original deal, et cetera. But it's a total mess. And guess what? On top of all this, as if it doesn't get any worse, put this up there. It turns out as crazy as all of this sounds, it gets even crazier because it turns out that Hunter Biden actually moved into the White House for two weeks, all while this crazy stuff was going down. As he was resolving his legal troubles in June, moves into the White House, having multiple private conversations with the president. A plea agreement was actually made on June 20th. Quote, one day later, the president and first lady welcomed first house gets from California, his name, Hunter Biden, along with his wife and one of his young sons to stay for two

weeks immediately after that was done. This is, first of all, not disclosed. How can the president and the White House are like, hey, what do we have to disclose whenever our family is staying there? It's like, well, yeah, I guess if it's like your small child, that's one thing. If it's your 50-plus-year-old son who's currently negotiating with the Department of Justice and getting sweetheart deals where you're directly weaponizing your role as first son, I think that's another one. Also, it directly calls into question, and actually does bolster a little bit of Hunter's defense here, where how can you say I've never spoken to my son about it when he's literally living with you the day afterwards for two

straight weeks while you are the current president and head of the United States government? If Trump did something like this, people would lose their minds. You can cry Jared Kushner and all that stuff all you want. It's all true. We don't, we don't, no one here is not going to validate it, but you cannot look at this state of facts and the pattern of everything that we have all just laid out and not say this is an outrageous scandal. And that the Biden family in particular, and especially President Biden in his role here, he clearly does not think he has done a single damn thing here wrong. He has no remorse. They're not even trying to dispel with the appearance of corruption. I just think that it's so outrageous to have him staying in privately in the White House quarters while all of this is going down. There's no attempt to even distance himself from any of this.

The part that I found most actually interesting in this reporting was about how most aides, almost everyone working in the White House, they won't even talk to Joe about any of this. They have this report here. They say inside the White House, most aides strenuously avoid discussing Hunter's troubles with the president. Believing their contributions and ideas would not be welcome, even as they worry about the personal toll it's taking on the elder Biden, according to half a dozen current and former officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Biden's tendency over the course of his long tenure in D.C. is to have the same very small circle of advisors, and those are the only people he really lets in. Now, in the beginning of this administration, apparently there was an attempt made to bring some of the newer folks

into the circle. There were larger meetings that everyone was participating in. The anecdotal reports that I have heard is that that is becoming less and less frequent, and that he is now increasingly sort of confining himself to this longtime circle of, you know, guys who are his same basically age and generation that have been with him forever. And part of that, I think, does have to do with the fact that, look, the Hunter Biden, this is going to be a big deal in the presidential campaign. It's a big deal politically. It's a big deal in terms of reality and perception of corruption. These are issues that you would want all of your advisors to be able to speak with you about and weigh in on. But because there is such great sensitivity about it, basically no one will

talk to him about it. He doesn't want to hear from anybody on it. And it has made his circle increasingly insular in terms of who he even lets in to talk about anything, not just Hunter, et cetera. So I think that is also a fascinating look inside the White House about how he's increasingly becoming more and more insular as these issues regarding Hunter take up more and more of his mindshare. Yeah, I think you're right. And I think it's crazy that Biden, I mean, just look, he thinks he's an ornery man. He's like, my family is off limits. He thinks that he can just set the rules as the president and people should listen to him. You know, someone should tell him that we actually live in a democracy and that's not how it works. So look, we'll continue to look into this, but man, I mean,

this is some of the, for all the reporting that's out there, I think rightfully about January 6th and Mark Meadows and all this stuff. This is like a soap opera level of political drama, which is not getting its due. Let's move on to the next one here. This is a story I know that a lot of you are very interested in and actually is quite fascinating. Michael Burry of big short fame has now put a massive bet on the US economy crashing. Let's put this up there on the screen. This was just a couple of days ago where Burry's Scion Asset Management has now put nearly $1.6 billion worth of put options for the S&P 500 and the technology sector in particular. So what's fascinating is that Burry has long kind of been famous for placing these big bets,

making sure that there's going to be a crash. He was seen, obviously, as the Cassandra. I think that's like his most famous brand after 2008 when he correctly called the housing crisis years earlier and shorted it. But this is one of the biggest shorts that he's actually made since then. And I guess the reasoning for his analysis is really interesting.

I mean, effectively what he says is he looks at the impending Federal Reserve decision on interest rates, declining earnings, the fact that inflation remains high. And he's like, look, the fact is, is that all of these fundamental, the yield curve, all this other stuff, the fundamentals are all blowing towards

an actual recession and a major drop. Eventually, the bill does have to come due for reality. The current S&P 500 gains and all that are not actually pegged to earnings or to any of the other important metrics for these companies, and the S&P 500 and all that will eventually reflect a crystal. So, you know, given his stature and given the nature of like who he is and his past record,

I do think it's interesting in order to look at it and to think about his controversial quote unquote analysis here. Maybe he's right. If he's right, he's going to make a ton of money. I mean, he plays in a very big bet here. He hasn't given a lot of insight into exactly, you know, why he's so bearish on the U.S. economy. But some of the things that, you know, people have been pointing to are like we've been covering the commercial real estate market and the fact that you have all this vacant office space and downtowns, you know, especially places like San Francisco, really sort of entering this doom loop. You've got all of this debt coming due in the commercial real estate space, not only in terms of office space, which is the most troubled, but also apartments, another troubled sector. So you've got that. You also have a lot of worries about the Chinese economy, which we covered here as well, and whether there could be huge spillover effects from a major downturn there as well. So, you know, he's in his own way with the bets that he's placing, sounding the alarm.

It is worth pointing out, though, that his track record is certainly not 100 percent. This was interesting from The Wall Street Journal. They took a look at not just him, but other people who have sort of famously placed the right bet at a critical financial moment. So people who got the Great Depression crash right, and then people who got the 2008 crash right as well. Put this up on the screen from the Wall Street Journal. The headline here is how to get rich and famous from a stock market crash. Big short hero Michael Burry sees disaster and eventually he'll be right again. So you've got a list of all of the predictions that he to replicate the initial thing that brought you fame and stardom.

And people tend to only focus on the times when you got it right. So it's like broken clock is right twice a day, et cetera. But then again, you know, he was right once. He called it when a lot of people didn't. So you also can't just discard what he's saying because he was seeing something in the market that other people were not seeing at all. Yeah, I mean, I think the reason why we are even covering it is just because, of course, of his past record. We're trying to offer the caveat. And I do think, though, it's important, you know, every mainstream financial analysis out there, which always makes me suspicious, is like, we think it's going to be OK.

We're going to achieve the soft landing. Yes, interest rates and all that. But like you said, look at the commercial property. Look at inflation. Look at earnings, which are going down. Look at all of the pressure and the feeling right now within the economy. And a lot of economy is expectations. The expectations are people feel, I was actually looking at this, the right track, wrong track number is the exact same today as it was in the height of June of 2020 when everything literally felt like it was falling apart. People feel as if something really bad is happening. The engine of our economy, which has been financialization and rich people, those people have been dramatically the people who have seen a contraction in their finances and in their spending. I was just reading today that the banks are no longer having to lend out big jumbo mortgages to rich people as a way of making money.

I mean, on the one hand, it's funny. On the other hand, that puts a tremendous amount of downward pressure on the housing market, specifically in more urban areas. And that constricts debt and the ability to cash out. And there's all kinds of downstream effects from this stuff that if he's right, you know, obviously he's going to make it big. But, you know, as you said, there's a bias when you are right once like that in order to keep calling it that way. But overall, I think we should elevate some of the quote unquote crank voices out there, just given what happened in 08. You always have to be suspicious of what the mainstream people are saying. Yeah. The last thing I think to note

specifically about the bets he's placing is he focused in on the tech sector. And there are a lot of concerns right now that there's like an AI bubble, basically. That anyone who slaps like AI on whatever they're doing is getting huge valuations and stock price bumps. I think he's probably right too. Just seeing like some of the deeply flawed results of AI and how the tech is in a lot of ways, like not even close to there yet. I think that that may be, you know, I think it's very possible. You have to think about it in the context of the past, which is in the dot-com bubble. Everyone was like, oh, pet, you know, everyone famously, pets.com, diaper.com, grocery.com, all this stuff. All of what ended up becoming profitable from the internet was

nothing of what people predicted in 97 all the way to 2000. It ended up being social media sites, like those some few monopolistic winners, people like Amazon and others. But really, you know what the big winner was? Is that all of that debt financed broadband internet access for everyone on top of creating mobile phone infrastructure that it unleashed Web 2.0, which is kind of the web that we're living in right now. Nobody predicted that in 97. I think the exact same thing is going to happen with AI. There's a million different possibilities. I've talked previously here about, there's some interesting documentaries people should go look at about how people thought the information superhighway, not the internet, the information superhighway, was going to be like the DVR on your TV was going to be like the main place that you were going to access the internet, not your phone and not your computer.

My point is just that like in the forefront of these technologies, nobody ever predicts how it eventually will work out. These VC guys are placing massive bets on everything because that's how their business works. They only have to hit it big on one Amazon and they can lose 99 other bets. But that doesn't mean, though, that the stocks aren't going to get wiped out, just like they did in the dot-com bubble. So I think he's right. I think he's right, at least to be dubious about some of the promises in that, in the immediate term, not in the long term, though. Could be something there. Crystal, what are you taking a look at? In 2022, Americans were the most scammed people in the entire world.

And the amount of losses to scammers skyrocketed to all-time highs. Those are some of the takeaways from a report on the state of scamming by Social Catfish, which compiled in-depth statistics on who was getting scammed, how they were getting scammed, and how much these victims lost. A few of the takeaways here, teens and seniors are particularly vulnerable. Most victims will never recover their money. And with AI development, the problem is only getting worse. First, let's just take a look at some of the top line figures here, because in some ways, this is the most disturbing part. In just five years' time, the amount of U.S. scam losses tracked by the FBI

and FTC has nearly quadrupled, rising to a record-breaking $10.3 billion. Just look at how the amount of losses, that's the dark purple bar, look at how those losses have grown, skyrocketing in just the past couple of years. But even these numbers wildly underestimate the amount of harm and loss in a given year because the overwhelming majority of scam victims, they never report. Out of shame and justified expectation, they're not going to recoup their losses anyway. In fact, Social Catfish estimates that the total amount of losses was more like $200 million in 2022 alone. Now, you might be a little surprised about who was most taken in by these scams. Although boomers lose the most money to scammers, after all, they have the most money to lose,

teens are actually falling prey to scammers at the fastest rates. Teen losses to scammers have grown 2,500% over the past five years. Judging by the number of highly suspect TikToks that my 15-year-old credulously sends me or presents as rock-solid facts, I guess I shouldn't be all that surprised. After all, this is a generation that lives out so much of their real life in the online world. Their friendships, romances, leisure activities all seamlessly move back and forth between the real world and the digital one. So just from sheer time spent online, there are more opportunities for scammers to take advantage of. Couple that with a teenage naivete about the world and you've got a recipe for disaster.

Now the most common scams targeting teenagers specifically take advantage of their desires for connection or for clout. Scammers might pose as a young, attractive person luring the teenager in before asking for money, or asking for nudes that they then use for extortion. They may pose as a social media influencer promising some sort of prize if the teen just pays a fee or sends bank account info. They might advertise a too-good-to-be-true

discount on some product and make off with the cash or bank account info when it's sent in. Or scam young gamers with a promise of some in-app purchase for rewards that do not actually exist. But make no mistake, whatever age you are or interest you have, there is a scam tailor-made to target you. They prey on all of our nation's failures and all of our vulnerabilities. In an era when housing is wildly unaffordable, wages are stagnant, debt is sky high, get-rich-quick crypto schemes have become the most financially devastating scam in the whole nation, jumping ahead of business email compromise schemes as the most costly. In 2022, more than ever before, young men in particular were lured in with

fake initial coin offerings, fake exchanges and wallets, and pump and dump schemes. But financial insecurity was the bedrock of a whole host of successful scams. Lonely boomers were preyed on by scammers posing as wealthy businessmen looking for love, luring the victim in with promises of wealth and business opportunities, convincing them to send money for investment schemes that do not exist. Others fell for lottery scams, where they're told they'll win a big prize if they just pay a fee or send in private identity information. Black Americans facing massive wage and wealth disparities, they were lured in with fake work-from-home job opportunities that might help a single mom make ends meet and still have time with their kids,

but really are just a trick to steal their identity or some upfront payments. And they were tricked with fake apartment scams by fraudsters who exploit the desperation caused by high rents and housing discrimination to steal deposits and application fees for non-existent rentals. The highly charged emotional political climate has also become a ripe landscape for scammers. We've documented some of this on this show. From the We Build the Wall scheme that Steve Bannon was indicted over to the fake Trump bucks, which were sold as legal tender, former President Trump's devoted followers have been robbed by scammers who exploit their sincere devotion to their political hero. But it is not only MAGA that is being robbed. The George Floyd social justice movement gave rise to fake GoFundMes, fraudulent charities claiming to fight for progressive causes but really just

stealing people's money. The unfortunate reality is this is just the beginning. With financial precarity rising, loneliness festering, paths to personal empowerment closing, our nation is only becoming more vulnerable. And with the widespread adoption of AI, creating a new landscape of voice impersonation, face swapping, and deepfake videos, the tools to trick people are only becoming more sophisticated. Our nation's status as both wealthy and wildly unequal with a threadbare social safety net has made us the number one target of scammers from all around the world. No other country even comes close in terms of online scam victims in 2022. When it comes to falling for scams, apparently we are number one. And Sagar, what was wild to me in this report was they go through a bunch of- And if you want to hear my reaction to Crystal's

monologue, become a premium subscriber today at breakingpoints.com. All right, Sagar, what are you looking at? Well, for those who know the mythology of the show, it really does all start with Andrew Yang. Back in 2020, during the Democratic primary, Crystal and I started a radical experiment on rising. Can we cover the news in a way that doesn't make people hate each other and isn't the typical partisan BS you see on TV? We're plugging away, pleased with our modest progress, and then Andrew Yang showed up for an interview. We treated him seriously. After that, it went stratospheric. So because of this, I always have a very soft spot for Andrew Yang and for the Yang gang. What we saw at that time was that Yang and his supporters'

only desire was to be treated with respect by the media and the overall electoral process. Pretty much until the end, he was denied that respect, and in many ways, he continues to do so. But his campaign did spawn a lot of lessons, for me especially. Yang was, I believe, the first true candidate of the internet, in that he quite literally could not have ever existed without it. There were predecessors, to be sure. Barack Obama, for example, he used his website to raise money in an unprecedented way from small donors. But at the end of the day, he was a traditional politician. He was a sitting US Senator. Yang, for all intents and purposes, was just a dude who wrote a book. With the message, though, that spread enough through the annals of the internet, he made his way to the debate stage

and was revolutionary at the time. So with this election, the question arises, who is the successor to Andrew Yang? In my opinion, we already have three. Two with this election, the question arises, who is the successor to Andrew Yang? In my opinion, we already have three. Two of them are on the Democratic side, RFK Jr. and Marianne Williamson. Both are probably even more marginalized by the media and the establishment than Yang was because of the current lack of primary process. But on the Republican side, we're seeing a different story. And it's important to try and understand why and how this campaign appears to be working. And that campaign is Vivek Ramaswamy's. Ramaswamy, by all rights, should be a footnote to the 2024 campaign. He has never held elected office. He's never really been involved in capital P politics

at all, really, before 2021. Seemingly kind of came out of nowhere with a book called Woke Inc. written after 2020, which is when he first came on my radar. But even at that time, the seeds of his so far successful campaign were planted. He seemingly did every podcast that asked interviews big and small, mainstream media, but independent as well. And he used his Twitter account to spread the word. If you go ahead and take a look at this, just like Andrew Yang, when he announced for president, he's continued his strategy. He has appeared just like Yang did, both on mainstream media, but also shows like ours, Megyn Kelly, the All In podcast, anyone with a massive platform. A search for Ramaswamy's name on YouTube yields videos with hundreds of thousands to even millions of views.

And anecdotally, Vivek's interview with us yielded one of the most views and downloads of any candidate in the race. RFK Jr. is the only one that comes close in interest. Similar, really, to RFK and Marianne, though, is the mainstream media is having a weird time with all of this. Vivek is getting coverage here and there from the New York Times or others, but over on Fox, they really showed their hand in a recent segment on the so-called Fox News power rankings. Take a listen to this again if you missed it from our previous bit on Thursday. Our power ranking show former President Trump keeping a firm grip on the party. So here's

what we have, Dana. He is far and away the front runner. Ron DeSantis, Tim Scott are in contention. You've got five others in the conversation and the rest are on the outside looking in. Hi, Dana and Bill. That's right. Feeling right at home here in Iowa. We can tell you that this morning, Senator Tim Scott breaking into the top three in those Fox News power rankings that were just released. So Fox, in a system that they literally just made up, decided that Tim Scott is now in play. But what does the actual data tell us? The RCP average of polls shows us clearly it's Trump, DeSantis, and Ramaswamy. If you are to believe a smattering of recent polls, Ramaswamy is actually tied with DeSantis, and in some has even overtaken him. So how can they justify putting Scott ahead of him

when in the actual average he's multiple candidates behind? The answer comes down to the same institutional bias that we saw with Yang. They simply cannot believe that it's real. And look, maybe it isn't. One red flag for Vake was that the most recent New York Times Siena poll found him at nearly 2%, far below the other averages. Maybe that was an outlier. Maybe the others won't. But within the system that we have, it's clear that he is a much more serious contender than many traditional candidates, at least as serious as they can be within the confines of the Trump-dominated party. Which brings us to the lesson section for the future. Considering Trump's complete domination of the party and the press and the mind of the GOP voter, it seems clear he is most of the conversation around so-called competition. It's all academic. What can we

learn from a Ramaswamy candidacy, at least so far? One lesson is clear. If you have something to say, you got to say it. And you got to say it loudly and to everyone that will listen. And I can tell you that booking him was incredibly easy relative to many of these other candidates. The others have been a Byzantine process of negotiation with aides on timing, often getting no response, despite the fact that shows like ours are watched by millions of people. At the same time, we get no response that I'll see these candidates then pop up on a weekend CNN hour, watched by probably one-fifth the number. Why? They're playing an old game. They are wedded to the old style. Traditional questions, traditional answers. Second, though, is of uniqueness. Having something to say is not the only metric. You got to have say something that is genuinely unique

relative to everyone else. And when it comes to defending Trump, Vivek always goes the extra mile. In a signal to Trump supporters, he's on their side. When it spans foreign policy, climate, wokeness, any other issue, he's got an extra long Twitter essay loaded with bullet points, and he comes prepared with interviews to actually defend his positions. He's perfected the online art of saying something outrageous and then having the intellect to at least back up some of it rhetorically, which scores him earned media and makes people pay attention. All successful internet candidates have done this. Yang with UBI, Marianne with radical acceptance,

RFK Jr. on the COVID establishment. It shows again that the internet at its most powerful is a dissonant force to establishment voices. And it inches us closer to my own personal dream, a world where the gatekeepers actually don't matter at all anymore. And that anyone, anywhere with something to say may actually get a shot at winning. And so I think it's really interesting what Vivek has

been able to accomplish. Even today, I just saw Time Magazine. And if you want to hear my reaction to Sagar's monologue, become a premium subscriber great show. We really appreciate it. We're going to have a lot tomorrow. As a reminder, we've got that debate special. We'll be dropping for all of our premium subscribers predictions. It's going to be well produced. It's going to be a lot of fun. It'll drop for everybody else later on. Thanks to everybody who helps us out here on the show, and we will see you all tomorrow. Camp Shane, one of America's longest-running weight-loss camps for kids, promised extraordinary results. But there were some dark truths behind Camp Shane's facade of happy, transformed children. Nothing about that camp was right. It was really actually like a horror movie.

Enter Camp Shame, an eight-part series examining the rise and fall of Camp Shane and the culture that fueled its decades-long success. You can listen to all episodes of Camp Shame one week early and totally ad-free on iHeart True Crime Plus. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts and subscribe today. Have you ever thought about going voiceover? I'm Hope Woodard, a comedian, creator, and seeker of male validation. I'm also the girl behind voiceover, the movement that exploded in 2024. You might hear that term and think it's about celibacy, but to me, voiceover is about understanding yourself

outside of sex and relationships. It's flexible, it's customizable, and it's a personal process. Singleness is not a waiting room. You are actually at the party right now. Let me hear it. Listen to Voice Over on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. DNA test proves he is not the father. Now I'm taking the inheritance. Wait a minute, John. Who's not the father? Well, Sam, luckily it's your not the father week on the OK Storytime podcast. So we'll find out soon. This author writes, my father-in-law is trying to steal the family fortune worth millions from my son, even though it was promised to us. He's trying to give it to his irresponsible son,

but I have DNA proof that could get the money back. Hold up. They could lose their family and millions of dollars? Yep. Find out how it ends by listening to the OK Storytime podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart podcast.